A Matter of Trust
by Loganlover
Summary: The gland is branching out into new territory, and Darien doesn’t know who to trust.


Title: A Matter of Trust

Author: Loganlover

Email: [Quicksilver_theagency@hotmail.com][1]

Status: complete

Category: Angst, Drama

Spoilers: none

Season: Season one

Rating: PG

Content Warnings: none. 

Summary: The gland is branching out into new territory, and Darien doesn't know who to trust.

Thanks to my Beta Readers: R2, Bladewind, Arlanne Linea-742, Gwenyfahra and "Biddygirl" for their contributions, edits and inspiration. 

Disclaimers: I don't own these characters, they're the property of the SciFi channel and its writers. This story is written just for fun, and no profits are being made from it. 

*********************

// "Trust. The word has always filled me with apprehension. Like wine, when I've tried it the after-effects have not been good. So I've given up wine...and trusting." Julius Caesar to Marc Antony. //

***

He was there again—at Arnaud's safehouse. Casey was there and he had to get her out. Not that he figured he had much of a future with her. That is, it wasn't like she had stood by him at his trial or anything. Not that he could really blame her. How else could she have reacted after discovering that the man she thought she knew was a lie? 

She had only showed up for that last horrible day, the day he had been sentenced to life without hope of parole. The judge had started off with "Death by lethal injection," then noted that regrettably, he couldn't apply that particular punishment in this case. Just great, a judge with a sadistic sense of humor. 

The pronouncement of life without parole had been enough though, to turn his vision black as the world closed in around him. In retrospect, he was surprised he hadn't passed out completely. The only thing he could really recall was that awful moment when he had turned to Casey - the only person he knew who had bothered to show up at his trial at all - and saw her walk away. The look of betrayal and disgust on her face produced a heartache in Darien second only to the pain inflicted when she turned away from him. 

But now she was here, and it was because of him. The details he didn't know. Why and how she had gotten here must have had something to do with some con-job spun by Arnaud. But that didn't matter - what mattered was getting her out. 

He was facing Arnaud in a classic "Mexican standoff." Darien, his back up against the wall, with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at his most vulnerable spot: the Gland. He knew Arnaud wouldn't risk Darien blowing his freakin' head off and losing the one thing he really wanted. 

Across a space of floor stood Arnaud, his goons at his back, acting as if he had all the time in the world. Bitch of it was, he probably did. 

Darien could feel the Quicksilver madness approaching crisis mode. It was kind of like watching a car wreck in slow motion. You knew what was happening, and what was going to happen, but you couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. He knew he had only minutes to fake his way out of this and get Casey out. What might happen after that, he didn't dare think. 

Arnaud reached into his jacket and pulled out a bottle containing a bright blue liquid. Slowly, almost nonchalantly, he drew up the elixir into a ready syringe. Instant recognition shot through Darien's brain and a slow creeping fog closed in around his vision, focusing all his attention on that blue liquid. The counteragent. His counteragent. What his sanity needed to survive. 

Through the fog he could barely hear Arnaud's taunts, until he said "You can almost smell it, can't you?" Smell it, hell, he could taste it. Darien licked his lips unconsciously, aware only of his need for that crystalline blue salvation just yards away. 

Arnaud causally held up the needle as if preparing to give Darien what he wanted. Darien swallowed hard, trying to remember why he was here, trying to cut through the mental fog. What was he doing? There was something... 

" ... I helped design it that way." 

What? Darien's concentration on the syringe was broken by that. His mind followed with horror the story Arnaud was spinning. The Quicksilver process was _designed_ to be addictive and the counteragent was the controlling key to the slavery produced by the Quicksilver. It was intended. All of it. He sank to the floor. He could no longer fight his hunger for the counteragent. 

In spite of everything, Darien was in awe. Truly. As much as he was suffering the effects of Arnaud's genius now, he was stunned by the diabolical simplicity of the whole thing. "That's...that's..." he could barely speak. "That's a great scam. Hell, its a license to print money."

Arnaud approached him and sat down next to him, gentle as a lover. His voice softened seductively as he enticed Darien to join him. "So come on board," he almost whispered. 

A thought floated up through the mental haze. "You killed my brother," Darien said. 

Arnaud leaned in closer. "So what? I'll kill mine, we'll be even. I want you here with me. Be mine. You belong to _me_ now, you know." He reached over to touch Darien's cheek. "Trust me." He cupped Darien's his face in his hands and kissed him. The kiss, light and gentle at first, quickly grew more demanding. The hands holding Darien's face gripped tighter and a hot, probing tongue entered Darien's mouth. 

Darien couldn't think, couldn't breathe. The world spun away as he found himself responding to Arnaud's kiss. A hot streak of desire flashed through his body and took up residence in his loins. His mind abandoned him. Even the Quicksilver madness was silent. 

"Aw Crap." 

****

With a yelp, he fell out of bed and landed heavily on the floor. "Shit!" 

Jesus! Where the hell had that come from? Darien thought. 

Darien was in his apartment, on the floor next to his bed. The clock he'd just knocked off the bedside table read 5:07. Five o'clock in the freakin' morning. From habit, he rubbed the back of his head, where his Quicksilver madness headaches usually started. He knew he wasn't going to go back to sleep. Not if it meant risking that dream starting up again where it left off. What a great way to start your day. 

Darien pushed himself off the floor and staggered over to his bathroom. He took a long, hot shower, then managed to nick his chin while shaving. "Damn!" he muttered, plastering a piece of tissue over the cut. He stared at himself in the mirror, looking at his eyes, checking for any telltale redness of the demon within. The eyes looking back at him were haunted with the memory of that dream of Arnaud, and worry about what it all meant. At last, he shook himself out of it, got dressed, and went to the lab. 

****

"Well, you're certainly looking like something the cat dragged in," the Keeper greeted Darien as he walked into the lab. 

He glared over at her. Several angry retorts sprung to mind but he bit his tongue. His day was already off to a crappy start, why add to it? He ran a hand through his tousled hair and decided that honesty was the best course of action right now. "Yeah, I'm a little tired. Haven't been sleeping well." 

"Oh?" She glanced up from her clipboard, looking at him curiously as he sat heavily in the exam chair. "Insomnia?" 

Darien shook his head with a sigh. "No, just some nightmares waking me up." 

Claire put her clipboard down, giving him her full attention. "What are you having nightmares about?" 

Darien felt a flash of embarrassment at the memory of the dream of Arnaud. "Uh…. I can't really remember." He lied, avoiding giving any details. There was no way he was going to tell her about the Arnaud dream - no way in hell. 

"Well" she said, coming over to glance at his wrist, "you're definitely due for a shot. Your monitor is nearly full." She paused a moment. "You know, its possible that your nightmares are linked to your Quicksilver levels." 

Darien looked at her, alarmed. Any new developments concerning the Quicksilver gland were usually bad news. 

The Keeper was thinking on her feet. "This may be a development resulting from the interface between the pineal gland in your brain and the Quicksilver gland."

"But the nightmares haven't been violent." He remembered too late how he'd told her that he couldn't recall them. "Um, what little I can remember," He added quickly. 

"The link is still a possibility," she mused. "We know that the Quicksilver acts as a cerebral disinhibitor, but until now your symptoms of Quicksilver madness have been limited to rages. Since the Quicksilver gland has begun to interface with the pineal gland, your symptoms may be expanding into dreamlike states." 

"Expanding?" This wasn't sounding good. 

"Well, there's no particular reason why Quicksilver madness has to be limited to feelings of rage in the first place. Excess Quicksilver spikes your norepinephrine and epinephrine levels, which causes increased heart rate and alertness. That can produce feelings of irritability and anger, but it could also be expressed as other mood states. And because of the interface with the pineal gland, those symptoms could come out during sleep long before your blood reaches saturation."

"So, the Q gland is starting to take over my dreams?" Darien had an image of the Quicksilver gland as a separate creature with a mind of its own that had taken up residence in his skull. Worse, the greedy little bugger was usually trying to take over, like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Keeper had told him again and again that the gland was just a biosynthetic organ and didn't have a personality...but somehow all her explanations couldn't wipe out that image. 

"Well, not exactly," the Keeper explained. "You see, the pineal gland controls us during sleep. And while biosynthetic, the gland _is_ a living thing. It may be that the dreams are the gland's attempt to interface with you." 

Darien jumped off the lab chair and started pacing back and forth like a caged animal. "Well, that's just great. Just when I thought I had a handle on the red-eyed demon, this little bundle of news pops up." 

"Don't worry, Darien." She was dismissing him again in that clinical-scientist way of hers that he found so totally annoying. "I can't surgically cut off communication between the two, but if I could examine the metabolic pathway between the Quicksilver gland and the pineal gland, I might be able to develop an blocking agent that will specifically block that pathway." 

Darien was cautiously optimistic. "OK, sounds good. What do we have to do?"

"You need to lie down and relax ." Claire was already busy setting up trays of lab instruments. "I'll set up for the extraction." 

"Extraction?" He became alarmed again. Why couldn't the Keeper ever run two sentences together without alarming him? 

"Yes, I'll need a sample of the neurotransmitters that are being activated between the two glands in order to isolate them for the new counteragent," she explained. 

"Uh huh," Darien said. "And just how are you going to get this sample?" He was none too thrilled with how that sounded. 

"Oh, don't be such a baby," the Keeper said. "I can do this with just a syringe. I'll even do it under anesthesia, so you won't feel a thing." 

She picked up his arm to give him the injection that would let him sleep through the procedure. As she stroked the inside of his arm, looking for a good vein, she smiled up at him.

"This won't hurt a bit. Trust me." 

"Ow!" Darien yelped as the needle sliced through his skin. Could the Agency possibly buy any bigger needles? 

Darien could feel the effects of the sedative, covering his body like a warm heavy blanket. He tried to move but couldn't. The loss of control didn't seem to be affecting his skin's sensitivity to touch, however…

****

The Keeper was stroking his arm gently, absently. "Oh" she sighed, "I'm going to miss having you around." 

"You planning on leaving?" Darien asked, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth. 

"No, but I'm afraid you are" she began. "You've been too much trouble to the Agency. 

You're rebellious and difficult to work with. And I'm afraid that episode with John Costagnacci put the finishing touches on your career here," she continued. "You've become a liability to the Agency, so they're replacing you." She smiled down at him. The sight sent a shiver of apprehension along Darien's spine. 

He was having difficulty focusing on her words, "How can they? Aren't they afraid of losing their seventeen million-dollar investment? Or are they really going to let me go in spite of that?" Darien said quizzically. 

Claire laughed gently and tossed her blond hair over her shoulder, "Oh, they've been screening candidates for months now. The Official called me last night and told me they'd found a volunteer who's perfect. He's a trained agent with an excellent record. All we need to do now is get him ready for surgery" 

"But you can't remove the gland." Through the foggy haze created by the sedative he'd been given, Darien was growing increasingly worried. 

"Yes I can," the Keeper replied gently, soothingly, "That's what I've been working on all this time."

"Heck, why didn't you say so? I've been dying to get this out of my head for ages." It felt as if he were speaking to her from the far end of a tunnel, she seemed so far away. 

"Well," she said with a small sigh of regret, "Yes actually, you probably will."

"Will what?"

Claire gave him a small frown, her sympathy seemed forced. "There's really no other way to remove it. I'm afraid you probably won't survive the procedure." 

Darien felt the beginnings of true panic forming at the back of his slowly numbing brain. 

"But don't worry," she continued in that soothing tone, "it'll be fine. The sedative I gave you will cause you to fall asleep. It will all be quite painless, really." The calmness with which she was delivering this speech only fueled Darien's rising panic. "You'll never know the difference." she finished. "Trust me." 

"No, no, no…this can't be happening." Darien tried to get up from the chair, tried to move to get away from her. No luck, he couldn't fight through the anesthesia, his arms and legs weren't responding. 

The Keeper approached him with another large needle. "Now this won't hurt at all, Darien." 

"No, wait!" Darien's mind raced to find a solution. A way out of this…but he had run out of time. 

****

The Keeper leaned over him and he felt the needle pierce his skin. An icy cool sensation flowed down his right arm. 

"Wake up Darien." He looked up through slitted eyes to see the Keeper standing over him, knowing who it was before he looked. The Keep was the only one who called him "Dahrien." She held a now-empty syringe in her right hand. "Wake up, Darien. How are you feeling?" 

"Confused," he mumbled. Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, he looked around. He was still in the lab, in his chair—the chair that the Keeper always gave him his counteragent shots in. 

"Since you needed it anyway, I thought I'd give you the counteragent as soon as I finished the extraction procedure," she said, turning back to her work on the lab table. 

"What about taking the gland out?" Darien was very confused now, what the hell was going on? 

The Keeper looked at him, puzzled. "Take it out? Darien, you know I can't. Not without hurting you" she added. 

"So...what just happened here?" Darien was very confused now. 

"Just what I told you Darien. I gave you the sedative, performed the extraction, then gave you the counteragent. Don't you remember?"

"So none of that was real?" Darien was catching up to the fact that he'd been asleep. 

"None of what?" Claire was staring openly at him, disbelief in her eyes. 

"Um, never mind. I must have been dreaming." He was going to need some time to digest all this. 

The Keeper realized she wasn't going to solve the mystery of why he seemed so confused until Darien was more willing to talk. So she returned to more solvable problems. 

A minute later, the lab door opened and Hobbes ducked his head inside. "Hey sport, you all set? We're needed upstairs in the Official's office."

"Run along, Darien," the Keeper said absently, not looking up from her work.

"So, you'll let me know as soon as you come up with a blocking agent, right?" Darien asked. 

"_If_ I do, of course I'll tell you." She didn't even look up at him. 

****

As Hobbes and Darien entered the Official's office, Eberts was busily setting up the slide projector. Darien could almost feel the boredom close in around his brain at the sight of the hated machine. These slide presentations were always long and boring, usually providing a lot of very dry details about an upcoming assignment - most of which Darien felt were irrelevant. The things he'd like to know up front, like who they were _really_ dealing with and what was the _real_ motive was behind the scenes, never seemed to be included under "need to know." 

Yeah, he had a burning "need to know" about most of their assignments. Unfortunately, it usually went unanswered. 

The Official and Eberts were taking turns droning on about the situation created by the Chinese spy network and their interest in obtaining the invisibility technology for themselves. Darien was only half-listening. Ordinarily, this might have been an interesting enough topic; after all, the gland they were after was in his head…a part of his anatomy near and dear to his heart. But Eberts and the Official both had a talent for making almost anything seem dry as toast, and today they were in rare form. Darien found his attention wandering. Maybe it was because he'd not slept well, but he caught himself with his head nodding toward the table twice so far, and they hadn't been in the office 20 minutes. 

"We've made considerable progress in reconstructing the data concerning development and insertion of new QS glands," the Official was saying. "We may be in a position to equip other agents with QS ability within the next year. But first, we need to find out how much the Chinese know about the process and how far they've come along in its development." 

"Yeah," Darien added his two cents worth, "and if they know anything about getting it back out."

"We're continuing to work on that, Agent Fawkes," the Official replied, slightly annoyed.

"Yeah, but why do I get the feeling I'm gonna be old and gray before I hear about it?" His voice dripped sarcasm. 

"I know how important it is for you to get that gland out of your head," the Official leaned across the table looking intently at Darien. "Discovering how to remove the gland is a top priority for The Agency." The big man gave Darien a cold smile. "Trust me." 

The Official and Eberts continued to drone on with their presentation for an interminable period, during which Darien was in danger of smashing his nose on the table in front of him every time his head nodded towards sleep. 

****

Finally, Hobbes interrupted. "Boss, isn't that just a big risk, equipping more agents with Quicksilver glands? Couldn't they just kidnap an agent, like they tried with Fawkes, take the gland out and have it for themselves?" 

"We have security procedures in place to ensure that can't happen," Eberts replied.

"What security procedures?" Darien asked.

"That's classified." The Official glanced up from the papers in front of him. 

"But we can tell you that removing the gland would not only kill the agent, but also damage the gland itself," Eberts interjected, "so they couldn't use it." 

"How do you know that?" Darien asked. 

"That's classified," The Official replied. 

This was too much. 

"Y'know," Darien began, "I am really beginning to despise the word 'classified' in ways I never thought possible." He was greatly relieved when they finally broke for lunch. 

While the Official and Eberts headed out of the building, Hobbes suggested grabbing some take-out at a local pizza shop. 

"Maybe next time, Hobbes," Darien said. "I've got a few things to do in the lab."

"Oh yeah, hotshot?" Hobbes raised an eyebrow, "you makin' time with the Keeper?" 

Darien shuddered at the thought. "Not in this lifetime, Hobbes. See you after lunch."

With that, Darien headed down toward the labs, turned the corner and went invisible. He doubled back to the hallway in time to follow Hobbes down the corridor and out to the street. He needed to make sure he'd be alone and uninterrupted. Darien returned to the hall outside the Official's office, removed a small packet of tools from his pocket and worked the lock. No sense being a thief if you couldn't get in when you needed to. 

Once inside, he sent a silent command to the gland in his head and stopped the flow of Quicksilver. Now visible again, Darien began searching the Official's desk and files for information. That 'classified' and 'need to know' nonsense during the briefing had gotten to him. He figured any information related to the gland was definitely his business. It was _his_ gland after all, so he figured he needed to know. 

Turning up nothing in the desk or file cabinet, Darien turned his attention to the safe hidden behind the "Fish & Game" seal. In any first-class penthouse or office building he would have had to blow the safe with explosives. But in classic F&G style, their safe was _really cheap_. Hell, he'd already cracked this safe once before and the schmucks hadn't bothered to change anything. 

The safe yielded up its goodies with just a few minutes work. Darien sorted through files and documents until he found one labeled "QS 2300." The file contained a description of the project, the gland, Quicksilver madness, and lots of other details he was already familiar with. He was about to put the file back when his eye caught sight of a page labeled "Security Features." 

Weird to think of a gland having 'security features.' 

Like what? Darien thought. A little car-alarm? A teeny little steering wheel club? A kill-switch? Oh, bad thought! 

His brows knitted together in concentration as his eyes skimmed a section on 'DNA compatibility.' 

// Because the QS2300 gland is a biosynthetic organism, physiological compatibility with the host/receptacle is necessary to avoid Organic Rejection Syndrome (ORS). This syndrome, seen in the first QS2300 host, SC-001, resulted in permanent invisibility and psychosis. // 

Darien looked up from his reading. "SC-001… Simon Cole?" 

// In addition to avoidance of the ORS, host compatibility at the DNA encoding level should also permit migration and proliferation of the bio-synthetic tissue native to the QS2300. Eventually, it is expected that the spread and integration of the QS2300 tissues throughout the brain of the host/receptacle will enable both more fine tuned control of the invisibility process as well as offering irreversible integration with the cerebral cortex. // 

"What the hell…" Darien's thoughts were interrupted by the office door opening. 

"…in time to catch Days of our Lives," Eberts was saying to the Official. They both stopped and stared at Darien, caught red-handed. 

"Ah crap." 

"Looking for something?" The Official strode toward Darien, barely contained fury on his meaty face, his hand reached out to get the file back. 

Eberts closed the door behind them and stood like a sentinel, as if preparing for trouble. 

Darien wasn't in a mood to take any shit from either of them at this point, and went on the offensive. 

"What's this?" he said, pointing to the 'security features' section of the file. "What's this DNA compatibility crap?" 

The Official and Eberts glanced at one another. 

Eberts pursed his lips together tightly, considering Darien a moment, then sighed. Fawkes had already found the information, lying about its existence now would solve nothing. "It's a design feature your uncle and Kevin Fawkes built into the Quicksilver gland." He glanced to the Official for approval before continuing. "The Agency required that there be a way to secure the gland from being stolen by outside parties. By growing the gland from the host's own DNA it creates one-to-one correspondence between host and gland. Only one person can host the gland because it's synthesized from his DNA. That's how we've avoided the problem of tissue rejection and permanent invisibility we had with Simon Cole." 

"But I don't have those problems" Darien protested. 

"That's because the gland in your head was created using your own DNA," Eberts explained. 

"No, they had the gland already. It was the one that was in Simon Cole" Darien argued. 

Eberts glanced again at the Official, took a breath and continued. "The original invisibility gland created by Kevin Fawkes used DNA samples taken from you" he. "Dr. Fawkes never mentioned when or how he got the sample from you, but it shouldn't have been difficult with you living there." Eberts continued, "We didn't realize the extent of the tissue rejection problems we would have in a host with different DNA. After things went bad with Simon Cole, it became clear that we needed you. We needed to prove the gland would work properly with the right host," Eberts concluded. 

The Official added, "That's why we agreed to Kevin Fawkes' request that we have your sentence commuted." 

Eberts looked at the Official. "But you were the one who…"

Shut up Eberts! The Official cut him off. 

"Does the Keeper know about all this?" Darien asked, concerned that not knowing might hamper her research on removing the gland. 

The Official was stonewalling. "We haven't yet determined that she needs to know." 

"But this" Darien pointed again at the file, "this says that with a compatible host, the gland is gonna keep spreading." 

The official and Eberts exchanged guilty-looking glances. 

"So, Its just gonna grow like a damn weed and take over my whole brain?!" Darien's voice was rising to match his temper. 

"You want to give me attitude? Fine" The Official said. "You were expendable when we brought you in. The only reason we're keeping you around is to get data to build a new gland . The fact that we can get some work out of you while you're here makes handling GAO a lot easier. If it weren't for the gland, you'd be nothing but a cheap two-bit punk rotting in prison where you belong." 

Darien felt furious. Wounded. Betrayed. "You're never getting this thing out of my head! You've been lying the whole time." 

Eberts tried to smooth things over "We didn't realize at the time that the compatibility between your brain and the gland would allow it to grow as fast as it has. It was an unforeseen consequence." 

The Official shrugged. "But we _are_ trying to find a way to remove it, trust me." 

"I don't believe a word of this!" Darien yelled, "YOU'RE A LYING BASTARD, FAT MAN!"

****

Darien jerked awake, and looked around. Hobbes was seated in the chair next to him. Eberts and the Official were on the other side of the table operating the slide projector. A ringing silence hung over the room. Everyone was staring at him, their faces frozen in shock. 

Darien instantly re-ran the last few moments through his mind, trying to figure out how much of what he just dreamed, he had actually said aloud. "Aw crap."

"You have a problem with the briefing, Agent Fawkes?" the Official glared at him across the table. 

Darien smiled weakly "Um…I was just asleep there, wasn't I?" 

"Apparently." The Official quirked an eyebrow and looked sternly at Darien. 

"Just don't ask for any donuts, pal." Hobbes snickered, trying hard not to laugh. 

Eberts scurried to rescue the situation. "Uh, Why don't we break here for lunch?" 

****

Darien and Hobbes spent the rest of the day working the second shift of an ongoing surveillance of a local mini-mart that was suspected of dealing contraband weapons from the back rooms. The assignment may have sounded exciting, but surveillance was usually boring beyond belief. Tonight's shift had lived up to those expectations. 

They took turns divvying up the work, and switching back and forth to avoid total boredom. Darien was listening for any conversation he could pick up on their remote 'electronic ears' and kept his mind occupied by reading his new copy of Philosophy Today. 

Hobbes was watching the building's back entrance for any activity while listening to the local classic rock station - turned down so it wouldn't interfere with Darien's audio surveillance. 

Though he tried to hide it, Darien was still very disturbed by the dreams he'd been having. Maybe he was getting as paranoid as Hobbes. What was it Eberts had said? Something about paranoia being contagious? He wondered if that were actually possible. He hadn't thought so before, but now he wasn't so sure. 

Hobbes suddenly reached for the radio. "Ah, you gotta here this" he said, turning the volume up, "its pure poetry." 

An ghostly voice came over the radio "_Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight, red is gray and yellow white, but we decide which is right, and which... is an illusion_."

Images from the dreams he'd been having came flooding back to Darien. This was too close to home! Freaking a bit, he lunged at the controls and slammed the radio off, causing his partner to jump in surprise. 

Hobbes stared at him. "What is it with you Fawkes? First its donuts, now it's the Moody Blues! What planet did you grow up on?" 

He paused a moment, "You're not weirding out on me here are you?" Hobbes looked closely at Darien's eyes. Ever since Darien had nearly strangled him during their investigation of Scarborough, Hobbes had been careful to check frequently with Darien about his Quicksilver levels. 

"No, I'm fine. Guess I'm just a little edgy" Darien replied. "I've been having nightmares again - like today in the Official's office. The Keeper said she'd work on something to help, but...." his voice trailed off. 

'Not the most satisfying response,' Hobbes thought. He made a mental note to stay alert for other potential signs of Quicksilver madness. Just in case. 

They turned over the shift to the next pair of agents and were prepared to head home when they got a call from the Keeper asking them to return to the Agency building. 

****

"Hey Keep," Darien strode into the lab. "How's the research going?"

"Well, I've come up with a formula that might do the trick. I can give you the additive agent tonight. If it works I'll add it to your counteragent shots."

"Great. So this will stop the gland from doing its thing?" This could be the first good news all day, Darien thought.

"It may stop the nightmares, if that's what you mean" the Keeper replied. 

"Yeah, and it'll break the connection between the Q-gland and the pineal gland right?"

"No, I can't promise that." 

The smile faded from Darien's face. 

"There's no obvious way to block the Quicksilver gland from interfacing with the pineal gland," she explained. "In fact, I can't even slow it down." The Keeper looked sympathetically at Darien. 

"I thought you said blocking it would be pretty straightforward. If you can't stop the gland spreading, then what's this shot for?" Darien was clearly upset, and the Keeper was trying to calm him. 

"It's a bio-synthetic organ, Darien. I thought that if I could identify unique properties of the biological part of the Quicksilver gland and isolate them as distinct from your natural brain, it could work as a permanent blocking agent. But I can't." She shrugged, looking puzzled, "I don't know why, but I haven't been able to find a distinct difference between the gland and your own tissues. 

The Keeper paused as if she was about to say something difficult. "I know you don't want to hear this, but its communication may eventually spread to include other areas of your brain as well." 

"What are you saying? He looked at her, alarmed. 

"I mean the gland could start making connections with other areas beyond the pineal gland" she explained. "I can't predict what the long term effects might be. It's a situation unique to you, Darien. None of the lab rats we implanted with glands showed this kind of spreading pattern." 

Darien was stunned. It reminded him of his dream in the Official's office this morning. This was right out of the Twilight Zone. 

"All I know is what the tests tell me," the Keeper continued. "If I could get the lab notes from Dr. Fawkes' early development work, maybe I could figure out how this happened, and why your tissues seem so compatible. But for now, all I can do is try to reduce the problems you're having with your dreams." 

Darien sighed heavily. He felt as if the floor beneath him was falling away from him as his world spun out of control. It was way too late at night and this was too much to think about when he was so tired. His brain was having trouble keeping up. 

"OK, just give me the shot and let me get outta here. Hobbes is waiting for me." 

****

Darien met Hobbes as he came out of the Official's office. "You ready to go Fawkes?" Hobbes asked. 

"Sure," Darien replied. "Its been a long, weird kinda day. I just want to get home and hit the sack." 

They walked out to the van, and drove to Darien's apartment. 

"Thanks for the ride, Hobbes," Darien said as he got out of the Agency van. It was very late and he'd been glad for the ride. 

"You OK now, hotshot?" Hobbes sounded concerned despite the tease. 

Darien nodded and managed a weak smile. "Yeah, the Keeper says the shot she gave me will take care of the nightmares. I guess I'll find out for certain soon enough." 

"Course it will" Hobbes said. "Why wouldn't it?" 

"Oh, I dunno" Darien considered. "I suppose she really _is _trying to work on this. It's just that sometimes I think everyone at the Agency has ulterior motives where this gland is concerned." He shrugged and headed toward the building's entrance. 

"Don't let it worry you kid," Hobbes called out to him. "No matter what the Fat Man is up to, as long as you play it straight with me, ya' got Bobby Hobbes watching your back. Trust me." 

"Aw crap." 

// Darien Fawkes - Note to self: Julius Caesar once said "keep your friends close and your enemies even closer." The way things have been going lately, there's no way I was gonna let these guys out of my sight." // 

   [1]: mailto:Quicksilver_theagency@hotmail.com



End file.
